Sun Demo Creative Brief Template
To help you get started, we have included a Creative Brief Template that you can use when you write your own creative brief. We have also included a completed Creative Brief for a fictitious project to give you a sense of how to fill out the template. Of course every project is different, so not all portions of the template may apply to your project, and conversely the template may not ask all the relevant questions for your project. Today’s Date Project Name Project Champion Project Overview • Provide a short overview of the project. Briefly include background information if relevant. • How would you categorize the demo project? Will it be a: Product tour Technical walkthrough for an advanced audience Tutorial Looping tradeshow presentation Another type of demo (what kind?)
Objectives • What objectives are you trying to achieve (e.g., generate leads, increase sales, increase retention rates, increase referrals, increase awareness, increase understanding of benefits and features, improve search rankings, etc.)? • How would you prioritize these objectives? • Can you suggest strategy or positioning to achieve the objective? • Where along these axes does this project fall? Entice/entertain/emotive----------------------------------Inform/intellectual Brief/high level---------------------------------------------Lengthy/detailed
Audience • Profile the target audience – provide enough detail to give the team a sense of who will be looking at this demo • Why do they need this information? Why do they care? • What does the target audience currently think about this product/service/offering? • What do you want the audience to think, feel, or do after seeing this piece? • What is the best way to reach this audience? Is there another way? Key Differentiator • What is the single greatest benefit or key differentiator for this product/offering/service? • What are the secondary benefits?
The Message • If you could get one sentence through all the clutter, what would that be? • What other major points do you want to communicate? Communication Strategy • How will we convince them? • What is the proof for your claims? Why should the audience believe you? • Have there been any presentations or demos in the past that worked to accomplish the desired objectives? Competitors • Who are the top three competitors (in order of importance)? • What is the competition doing? What offers and creative approaches are they testing and rolling out? Call to Action • How do you want your audience to respond to the message? E.g., contact your sales team, send in an order, request a free information packet, etc. Design Requirements • What elements must be in the demo (e.g., logo, reference to website, color, slogan, character, celebrity, etc.)? • Are there any design requirements and/or elements that this demo must include? Deadline • When must the finished work be delivered? Budget • How much money do you have to spend on this project? • Has this budget been approved? Resources • Who will be responsible for which parts of this project? Responsible Parties • Who needs to sign off on final execution?
Example of Completed Creative Brief
Today’s Date: August 30, 2006 Project Name: Server UVX Product Launch Product Tour Project Champion: Pablo Picasso Project Overview We want to create a short, eye-catching Flash-based product tour of the new Server UVX. The culmination of a large scale development effort, the new server promises to increase throughput and performance by 25% over the previous version while decreasing cost of ownership by 15%. The new server features several technical improvements which we would like to highlight in the demo, including: • Performance benefit A • Performance benefit B • Performance benefit C Objectives Our primary objective is to promote the new server and generate excitement about it among our existing as well as potential new customers. We hope that the increased awareness and interest in Server UVX will result in new orders. We aim to position the server as the new price-to-performance ratio champion, as compared to competing servers in its class. Audience Our primary audience will be IT Directors, CIO’s, and anyone else who may make or influence IT-related buying decisions in a mid-to-large enterprise environment. They need this information because as a new product, Server UVX does not have the market visibility of its competitors. This audience cares about this information because products that provide them with greater value for their IT dollar are always of interest. Currently, we believe that this audience has a good impression of Sun server products, but does not necessarily see Sun as providing the greatest value. We hope that once they appreciate the new features and performance of this server, they will see Sun as the price-to-performance leader in this market. This audience is best reached online – they tend to ignore brochures and promotional emails and prefer to get their information on the web. Key Differentiator The single greatest benefit of Server UVX is its excellent price-to-performance ratio. Secondary benefits include improved reliability and imperviousness to outside attack. The Message Sun’s new Server UVX is the new price-to-performance leader in mid-range enterprise servers, combining the latest and greatest technology with the lowest cost of ownership in its class. Communication Strategy We will convince our audience of our claims by showing them graphics that illustrate our performance improvements as well as provide actual quantitative data that will back up our marketing language. We will also create two or three eye-catching custom animations that demonstrate how our new technology decreases throughput bottlenecks and defends against outside attack.
Competitors Our three top three competitors IBM, HP, and Apple Call to Action We want to provide an easy way for viewers to click to send an email or to call a sales rep. We also want to provide easy access to more detailed promotional and technical materials on the web. Design Requirements Elements that must be included in the demo include • Photos of the new server • Custom animations illustrating New technology that decreases throughput bottlenecks New technology that defends against outside attack Lower cost of ownership compared to the competition Improved performance according to several important benchmarks
• Graphs showing
• Links to website and contact information Deadline This demo must be completed by end of Q4 2006 for launch early Q1 2007 Budget Our budget of $110,000 has been approved for this project Resources We have a team in place that will consist of a dedicated visual designer/Flash developer, a content writer/information architect and a producer. Responsible Parties Along with my manager, I am responsible for sign off but will review the demo with appropriate stakeholders at specified milestones.